Youth Chart New Course to Disrupt Our Ocean's Future

This article was originally published to Huff Post at this link on Jun 16, 2017, 10:46 AM and updated Aug 2, 2017.

Last week, world leaders gathered at the United Nations Headquarters in New York for a high-level forum on ocean sustainability. The message was stark: the crisis of our oceans requires leadership and innovation, and leadership cannot be left to political leaders alone. Rather, the changes required to enable continued prosperity on a healthy blue planet require cooperation between business, scientists, civil society, and governments to drive systems change. We need to change the way we as a species relate to the natural environment on which we depend.

The ocean has suffered overfishing, warming waters, nutrient and debris pollution, rapid acidification, and changes in circulation that might have wide ranging impacts on the global climate. That’s why I have been raising awareness and empowering youth to create the business, policy and advocacy initiatives that will restore life at sea. In a rapidly changing planet, the work of the Sustainable Oceans Alliance is now more critical than ever

We are convinced that young leaders can challenge the status quo and enable the billions of people who depend on the ocean for food or income to have a brighter future. Equal opportunity is not possible if we allow the most vulnerable to suffer the consequences of a changing climate and of overfishing by long distance fleets funded by distant nations.

It was heartening to see and hear world leaders –led by the President of the General Assembly, Peter Thomson, Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden Isabella Lövin, and Prime Minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama heed the call to protect our blue planet. I attended the UN Ocean Conference, along with a youth delegation which met former presidents, emerging business leaders and NGOs to discuss the solutions needed to restore life in our global ocean. Youth participation in these discussions brings a fresh perspective and new energy to create solutions.

The time to sound the alarm is long past; now, the next generation must either chart a new course to the future we imagine—with prosperity enabled by a healthy sea--or be left adrift, facing uncertain winds and a future that might threaten human life itself.

In our conversations, we found hope. President Grímsson of Iceland presented policies that reduced waste in Iceland’s fishing industry. Wybe Bruinsma, CEO of Van de Sant, spoke of his company’s integration of ocean plastics into its supply chain, and its fully recyclable furniture.

Nishan Degnarain and Dr Gregory Stone, Chairs of the World Economic Forum's Special Initiative on Oceans, expressed their enthusiasm for a vision of involving youth in tackling ocean conservation challenges. In their newly published book, Soul of the Sea in the Age of the Algorithm, they present a manifesto where new leadership for our oceans may lie with youth and technology startups, who can challenge norms, rethink business models, and develop radically new policy innovations at a 'systems' level.

They refer to the potential of the 'Fourth Industrial Revolution' and how new technologies will drive our next uses of our oceans, and this requires major shifts in our value systems and technological solutions to achieve impact at scale.

Youth, with unbridled creativity and determination, and unencumbered by assumptions of “how things work” can and must create that change, to replace the current system. Often now, economic growth is parasitic on the environment and power structures enable suboptimal outcomes. We can accept that no longer.

That is why I will continue work in new countries and new areas—connecting a global network of young leaders to each other and to the mentors and leaders that can help make our vision a reality. The hope is to enable entrepreneurs to create sustainable and profitable alternative ventures, and continue to give youth the opportunity to participate in high level international fora—where they can learn from but also challenge leaders to create the change we need.

At the Our Ocean One Future Leadership Summit last September, co-hosted by the Sustainable Oceans Alliance and the State Department, then Secretary of State John Kerry told 150 young leaders from more than 50 countries “I don’t think this is an end. I think this is a beginning. And I think we are going to, all of us, share a new voyage of environmental stewardship, environmental leadership, and we are going to be informed by unassailable science. We’re going to be driven by an awakened and global constituency. We’re going to be motivated by the fact that when the very health of the planet is at stake, delay, denial, and neglect have no place on the agenda.”

When some in power make denial and neglect their policy, they’ll find assiduous opposition from us, the next generation. We are the awakened and global constituency, and our time has come. Young leaders at the UN Ocean Conference are a start, but only the beginning—we will continue to lead the voyage to a prosperous future on a healthy blue planet. The businesses we create, innovations we drive in policy and governance, and our rethinking of power structures will open a future of oceanic opportunities.